Letter from Shootfire

The other day I was looking at a Chinese map of the USA and it suddenly hit me - they've given every state, every city, every river in America a Chinese name! San Francisco is called Jiujinshan (old gold mountain), New York is Niuyue, Los Angeles is Luosanji, Philadelphia is Feicheng and the country itself is called Meiguo (beautiful country). I’m almost reluctant to mention this least a xenophobic congressperson take it up as a national security threat - an obvious precursor to a planned takeover of the homeland.

It’s highly unlikely that an attack is imminent. China has a few more pressing matters to attend to before they take on world conquest. Nonetheless, in the spirit of reciprocity, I have taken up a project to give each Chinese geographical feature, from its smallest mountain stream to its largest waste-choked river, an American name. These will be real American names. None of that Piddle-upon-Sussex sort of English nomenclature mind you. I’m looking at solid names along the lines of New Bug Tussle, Grizzly Lake, and Slap Out. I may even throw in some good Native American names such as West Pottawatamie and Pushmataha. Something as hard for the Chinese to say as it is for New Yorkers to say Niuyue.

I’m going to include you in this naming project so be thinking of great names for the Chinese provinces - we’ll start with that. Here’s a few to start with:

Zhejiang
Jiangsu
Fujian
Shandong
Liaoning
Guangdong

I’ve already taken the liberty of renaming Shanghai as “Shootfire” and the capital city of Beijing as “Big Flats”. The Changjiang (long river) will be known as the “West Chattahoochi River”. The “Chunky River” (Huangpu River) runs into the West Chattahoochi just above Shootfire.